Justices hear Weyerhaeuser, federal frog fight

As the Supreme Court of the United States returned from its summer recess on Oct. 1, one of the first issues heard during its new term involved a timber giant with a major presence in Columbia County, a rare frog and a challenge of the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973. In the case, which has been appealed all the way to the high court since 2012, the Weyerhaeuser Company—owner and operator of a veneer plant in Emerson and a nursery in Magnolia—and a Louisiana landowner are at odds with the federal government over 1,544 acres in St. Tammany Parish involuntarily deemed a "critical habitat" by the federal government for the endangered dusky gopher frog. The problem, though, according to the petitioner, is that the frog has not called the acreage home since 1965 and the land as it exists now cannot support the animal. The seven-year-old case has been defeated in every lower court and ruled in favor of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The most recent ruling came in 2016 from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The matter began in 2011 when, according to a Sept. 13 New Orleans Times-Picayune report, the federal fish and wildlife agency classified thousands of privately-owned acreage in Louisiana as a possible breeding ground for the amphibian. The dusky gopher frog, also called the Mississippi gopher frog, is currently only seen in the Magnolia State, where approximately 100-150 still live in the wild just north of Gulfport, Miss. The Louisiana land, owned by New Orleans resident Edward Poitevent and his family, is, according to the wildlife agency, the only area in the country that the frog could potentially rebreed if its natural homelands in Mississippi suffered a major drought and displaced the animal. But the acreage now, according to an Oct. 1 report by the Property and Environment Research Center, is full of lush commercial-grade timber and not suitable for the frog. To convert the land into a proper habitat, an abundance of the existing pines would need to be chopped down, new variations of foliage planted, and further accommodations made, including regular controlled property burns and clearing of the land. The Endangered Species Act also places certain restrictions on the area that would likley severely hinder most future development plans or industrial timber farming. Poitevent claimed the endangered species "habitat" tag placed on his acreage—due in no small part to a tract that includes five ephemeral (seasonal) ponds suitable for the frog's breeding—would devalue the parcels to the tune of $34 millions of dollars. It would also cost him personal expenses to convert the property for the frog even as it has not called the area home for more than 50 years. Weyerhaeuser Company, which filed the 2012 suit against the federal wildlife agency, has interest in the matter since it currently holds a 140-acre timber lease on the Poitevent family land that does not expire until 2043...MORE